


Don't Leave Me Here All Alone

by Noëlle McHenry (Quasi_Detective)



Series: Project Eclipse [26]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Backstory, Best Friends, Break Up, Deja Vu, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Gen, Interrogation, Love, Male Friendship, Murder, Murder Mystery, On Hiatus, Platonic Male/Male Relationships, Police, Sequel, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-09
Updated: 2017-03-06
Packaged: 2018-09-16 13:29:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9273914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quasi_Detective/pseuds/No%C3%ABlle%20McHenry
Summary: It's been three years since best friends Dr. Darcy Adair and Ansel Hunnisett went their separate ways. Since then, Ansel has got engaged, and Darcy has found himself a girlfriend of his own. Six months after not speaking at all, Darcy gets an unexpected call from his old friend, not knowing that this call signifies the beginning of a horrible series of events that will result in the massacre of those they love, and that within three days, his happy life will have turned completely upside down as the police close in and determine that they are the only possible suspects, despite their innocence. Is there any hope for them, considering no one would ever believe who the real culprit actually is?Sequel toDon't Wake Me Up Just Yet.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Don't Wake Me Up Just Yet (Old)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10873440) by [Noëlle McHenry (Quasi_Detective)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quasi_Detective/pseuds/No%C3%ABlle%20McHenry). 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit #1 (March 6th, 2017): Major plot change, since other plot device was too bland for my tastes. Also, minor grammatical fixes.

            For Lieutenant Bryn Whittemore, it was as normal a night as ever. New day, new case, he’d come to learn; tonight, he had finally found one of the two murder suspects he’d been pursuing for the last two days. Luckily, the one he found was the more sensitive of the two. Whittemore was sure he wouldn’t take long to crack and tell him where his partner was.

            The motive of their crime was what baffled Whittemore the most. So many victims, all female, one of them the still-on-the-run suspect’s wife of two years (though she was just missing, it had been three days since her disappearance, so Whittemore unofficially assumed her to be dead). One of his officers had joking suggested that, perhaps, it was some sort of morbid, homosexual, reversed form of _Romeo and Juliet_ , and honestly, he was no longer sure of whether or not that was the case. Whatever the motive was, Whittemore was going to figure it out. He wouldn’t go home until he did.

            He had a cup of coffee in his hands as he entered the cramped and stuffy interrogation room. Sitting at the table was the man he’d arrested no more than twenty minutes earlier; a tall, slender man with messy, curly dark brown hair. As he entered, the suspect glanced up at him, half-heartedly watching as he walked to the other side of the table, put down the cup of coffee, and then took off his long, carob-colored overcoat. He placed the coat over the back of his chair before finally sitting down and letting out a gruff exhale as he scratched at his light beard. His grey-ish brown hair, parted to his right, was a bit messy, but he didn’t really care to fix it; he was too focused on the task at hand.

            The suspect in front of him lowered his head to the table. His hands were still handcuffed, but he ran his skinny fingers through the locks of hair on his head and inhaled shakily. Another big thing that Whittemore couldn’t figure out on his own was why _this guy_ was involved. Why would a man like this throw his life away by taking others? He was a doctor, for crying out loud! It just didn’t make sense.

            Whittemore clasped his hands on the table as he leaned forward. This prompted the doctor to again meet his eyes, but still he didn’t do anything other than stare. His eyes were puffy, revealing that he’d been crying before Whittemore walked in. Finally, the lieutenant decided to begin the interrogation.

            “Let’s not dawdle.” He insisted firmly. “I want to know why you did it.”

            The suspect shook his head. “I didn’t do it,” he mumbled.

            Whittemore huffed impatiently. “We could do this all night.” He argued. “Do you want to do this all night? I’m not tired. I could go for hours. Or, you can make this quick by telling me the truth.”

            “I _didn’t_ — _do it!_ ” The doctor slammed his hands down on the desk, shouting now. “You’re making a terrible mistake! People are going to _die!_ ”

            Whittemore jumped to his feet and pointed accusingly at the doctor. “Yes, they will, because your friend isn’t done yet, is he?!”

            “We’re trying to _save_ them!”

            “You’re so full of shit!”

            “Lieutenant,” the doctor sat up straight, glaring at Whittemore with a serious, determined look in his light brown eyes, and he told him, “I am not a killer, nor is Ansel. In fact, Ansel Hunnisett is the kindest man I have ever known. We are _not_ the ones you’re looking for, and if you keep me locked up here, everyone in this station—hell, everyone _you know_ —is going _to die_. You don’t know what you’re getting yourself involved in. So, I’m only going to ask you this once, and you’d better have an answer for me or else we’re both in a _lot_ of trouble: _where is Ansel?!_ ”

           

* * *

 

            It was hard for Dr. Darcy Adair to believe that three years ago, he had been in a pit of depression so deep that for many nights, he’d wanted to kill himself, when now, on the evening of February 14th, 2021, he was loving life. He had a beautiful girlfriend named Chloe Blum, who he had met by chance at the grocery store a few months prior. Their relationship was casual, but sincere nonetheless. Each day, he fell steadily more in love with the girl. She filled the void that had been left by his best friend.

            Ansel Hunnisett was, without a doubt, Darcy’s favorite person. He’d lost the young man twice before, and had fought both times to get him back, but when Ansel left to get engaged to a math teacher named Molly Barton, he finally decided it was time to let him go. That was two years ago, and the two men hadn’t seen each other since. Ansel had tried to stay in touch, but as days turns into weeks, and weeks into months, Darcy felt less and less inclined to reply. It wasn’t that he didn’t miss Ansel, it was just that Darcy was more of a “physical presence” type of guy; texting Ansel and talking to him over the phone just didn’t do it for him. As such, he was terribly sad to have to admit to himself that they had grown somewhat estranged; Ansel’s texts to him slowed, becoming more awkward and forced as they did, before stopping completely. As of that evening, it had been at least six months since Darcy had heard from Ansel at all. As he drove home from work, the doctor vacantly wondered how his friend was doing, and he hoped that he was still okay.

            Darcy’s work history was an odd subject to approach. He had worked at a hospital for three years, but in January of 2017, had quit. Then, in December of 2018, he started working at a school as a nurse, but only for about two weeks before he quit and almost immediately returned to being a doctor. All of this was due to Ansel, of course, as was his two-year-long spell of suicidal depression.

            He had lost Ansel twice. The two incidents were events that Darcy tried to repress, half due to them being too painful, and half due to the fact that even he was beginning to question what exactly had taken place. On December 24th of 2016, Ansel had died in his lap due to the effects of a progressed stage of fatal familial insomnia. Then, two years later, Darcy met a computer teacher named Bradley Carlisle, and it just so happened that Bradley knew black magic. Next thing Darcy knew, the computer teacher had resurrected Ansel for him.

            The days that followed Ansel’s resurrection were simultaneously the best and worst days of Darcy’s life. The best, because Ansel had just been brought back from the grave. The worst, because Ansel ended up possessed by a psychotic demon. By some wild fluke, however, everything worked out in the end, and here Darcy was, now living a normal life, as was Ansel (as far as he knew, at least). He and Bradley were still good friends. In fact, if he ever were to marry Chloe, he planned to ask the teacher to be one of his groomsmen.

            After parking his car in the driveway of the house that formerly belonged to his late father, he got out and walked up the steps to his front door. When he opened it, he heard someone in the dining room, so he turned his head to the right. His light brown eyes met with his girlfriend’s; she was wearing a quaint little pink apron, and she was smiling at him.

            “Welcome home, baby,” she greeted. “I hope you’re hungry. I made us dinner.”

            Darcy grinned at her. “Aw, Chloe, you didn’t need to do that.”

            She walked over to him as he removed his coat, placing her hands over his shoulders and thereby having to stand on the tips of her toes. “Darcy, it’s Valentine’s Day. Of course I did.” She remarked, vaguely teasing. Then, she pecked him lovingly on the lips. “Let’s eat, okay? I’m starving. I don’t mean to brag, but what I made looks _delicious._ ”

            Darcy giggled, holding his girlfriend close to his side and walking to the kitchen with her. Halfway through the spectacular homemade dinner, the doctor heard his cellphone begin to ring.

            “One sec, babe,” he told her, but when he felt for the phone in his pocket, he didn’t find it. Looking up, toward the hanger by the front door, he saw his coat, and only then did he realize that he’d forgotten to take his phone out of his coat pocket.

            “Oh, just let it ring through.” His girlfriend told him as she brushed a loose strand of her straight, light brown hair out of her face. “If it’s an emergency, they’ll call twice.”

            Darcy inwardly shrugged and took her advice. It wasn’t until she started cleaning the dishes, playfully refusing his help, that the doctor finally had a chance to go over to his coat. He pulled out his phone.

            “ **1 missed call** from **Ansel**.” The lockscreen read.

            Darcy raised a brow. Ansel hadn’t even sent him any texts, which was usually his preferred method of mobile communication. “Maybe he butt-dialed me.” He thought. He decided to walk into the living room and check his voicemail while standing beside the computer idly. Finding that Ansel had indeed left a message, he let out a shaky breath before bringing the device to his ear to hear it.

            “Hey, Darc,” Ansel began in the message. He sounded… nervous, to say the least. “Look, man, I know we haven’t talked in a while, but I, uh… I guess I wanted to let you know that I’m alive? Well, at least, I think I am. Hell, I’m… a bit scatterbrained right now.”

            Darcy found himself standing in silence. Ansel usually had a pleasant sort of effect on him, but something about Ansel’s tone in the message was giving him a bad feeling.

            “It’s just… For one, I miss the hell out of you, dude. But, uh…” He trailed off, then asked, “Are you sitting down? I hope you’re sitting down. You might want to find a chair or something, because what I’m going to say next will probably shock you.” The young man on the voicemail started laughing sarcastically. “Did you see what I did there? I’m phrasing it like a clickbait title. ‘ _Ten Things That Have Changed In My Life (Number Five Will Make You Leap From A Second Storey Window!)_ ’ Ha ha ha. But no, I mean, it probably won’t shock you that much.” The lack of a real segue from Ansel’s joking back to his serious tone made Darcy fail to stifle a nervous snicker, but his girlfriend didn’t seem to notice his laughter.

            “Darc, uh… Shit.” The younger man tittered nervously. “Listen, I just… I need to talk to you. I’ve changed my mind about talking about it right now, but, um, call me back when you get this, I guess?”

            Darcy’s laughter stopped. Something was the matter. Suddenly, he felt a pit forming in his stomach from worry. Had something bad happened? If so, what?

            “It’s about…” Ansel started to speak, but stopped himself. “Look, call me.” There was a pause, and then he ended the message with a quiet, “Okay.”

            For a long moment, Darcy merely stood still, staring at the screen of his phone. Then, with a low exhale, he slowly attempted to call Ansel back. However, he was left disappointed when he instead reached his friend’s voicemail. Despite the lack of an answer making him that much more anxious, the doctor decided to leave a message of his own.

            “Ansel, it’s Darcy.” He began in a serious voice. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m always here for you. Call me when you’re able to talk about what’s bugging you. I promise I’ll answer. I’m worried about you, Poppet.”

            Three hours later, at nine, Chloe was sitting on the couch together, watching something on TV. Ansel still hadn’t called Darcy back, so the doctor tried to unwind at first by watching TV with Chloe, but he ended up spending most of the three hours pacing the house.

            “Darcy, he probably won’t call you back tonight.” Chloe assured him. “Just come sit down.”

            “Nah, I’m sure he will,” insisted Darcy, “probably at some irrational time, though.”

            That was when there was a rapid knock on the front door. Darcy and Chloe shared a curious glance.

            “Are you expecting someone?” She asked him.

            “No.” Puzzled, Darcy decided to check who it was. He pulled open the door and froze when he saw Ansel standing there.

            Ansel was wearing a black pea coat, and he had his hands buried in the pockets. His light brown hair was a bit messy, as usual, and he had kept most of his facial hair from the last time they’d seen each other; moustache (though it was now somewhat split in the middle) and light chinstrap, but he looked exhausted. His dark brown eyes met Darcy’s for just a second before he glanced down to the ground, slouching somewhat as if ashamed. “Hey.” He mumbled the greeting timidly, which wasn’t very much like him. Darcy was speechless, so Ansel continued talking to fill the silence. “I’m sorry for showing up out of the blue like this. I would’ve called again, but I wasn’t sure you’d actually answer, so I didn’t bother.”

            “Why are you here?” Darcy finally managed to ask, albeit before he thought about how unwelcoming he might sound. “Shouldn’t you be with Molly?”

            Mentioning Ansel’s wife made the young man shake his head a bit and let out a low snicker. Chloe finally stepped forward, but she stayed in the doorway to the living room and didn’t say anything.

            “Ansel?”

            “About that…” Ansel trailed off, then shrugged his shoulders. Finally raising his head, he met Darcy’s eye and swallowed heavily before admitting, “We broke up tonight.”

            Darcy frowned, staring at his best friend. He didn’t say anything at first, waiting for Ansel to crack up and reveal that it was a joke, but when it didn’t happen after thirty seconds, he finally realized that his friend was serious. “What? What happened?”

            “It’s a long story.” Awkwardly scratching the back of his head, Ansel then asked, “I know that we haven’t seen each other in God knows how long and that I’m walking back into your life very much out of the blue, but… I need someplace to stay.”

            The doctor wasn’t sure how to react other than by staring at Ansel in shock. Not knowing what else to do, he then nodded and allowed him inside. He had to figure out what had happened between the young man and his fiancée.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit #1 (March 6th, 2017): More or less entirely re-written to fit the new plot device.

            Darcy was still trying to wrap his mind around just what was going on. Less than five minutes ago, he had been talking with his girlfriend about a worrying phone call from his estranged best friend, and now, suddenly, he was standing in front of the couch, upon which sat said friend. Ansel was seated calmly, if not tiredly. His coat still on, the younger man glanced up at Chloe in curiosity. Chloe smiled at him awkwardly, but then turned her focus onto Darcy, whose focus remained solely on Ansel.

            In truth, it wasn’t so much the sudden appearance of Ansel that had petrified Darcy so; rather, it was the news he’d brought with him: the news that he and Molly had just broken up. He couldn’t figure out _why_. Last he heard, they were more than happy with one another. Just what had he missed?

            Finally giving up on trying to identify the unknown woman on his own, Ansel spoke to Chloe. “We’ve never met before. Who are you?”

            Despite still being awkward and clearly displeased by Ansel’s mere presence, Chloe did try to be polite. She extended her hand toward Ansel with a tight-lipped smile, though her eyes expressed how fake her pleasure was. “Uh, I’m Chloe, Darcy’s girlfriend.”

            Ansel raised his brows at the word “girlfriend”, and then glanced up at Darcy with a small smirk tugging at the corners of his lips. “Well,” he remarked, “ _awk-waaard._ ”

            “Look, baby,” Chloe pulled her hand from Ansel’s and also looked at Darcy, using her now-free thumb to point behind herself, toward the front door, “I’m gonna go now. I can tell that this is personal business.”

            Darcy nodded his head at her. “Sure, babe. Be careful on the way home.” Though he meant this as lovingly as normal, it came out of his mouth in a bit of an apathetic, detached tone. Chloe didn’t seem to mind, however, and she simply got her coat off of the hangar by the door, picked up her purse as well, and then left.

            Neither Ansel nor Darcy did anything for a few long seconds that felt more like an eternity. Ansel merely stared down at his own lap, and Darcy at the floorboards beside the couch. There was a tension filling the room that made it impossible for either of them to find a correct time to begin speaking, and somehow, even prevented them from knowing _what_ to say. As much as Darcy wanted to ask Ansel what happened, he found himself unable to find a “polite” way to ask it, and Ansel felt that he would be forcing his problems onto Darcy by just beginning to vent.

            A few more seconds of silence, however, and Ansel, unable to bear the silence any longer, finally decided to take one for the team and be the first to speak. “So… Long time no see.”

            “Indeed.” Darcy replied meekly.

            “You have a girlfriend now.”

            “Yep.”

            “She’s pretty.”

            “Isn’t she?”

            “How’ve you been?”

            “Fine.”

            “That’s good.”

            Again, that dreaded silence filled the air. Darcy finally took a deep breath and asked what was on his mind. “What happened tonight?”

            Ansel chuffed in a sort of ironic amusement, but didn’t answer. When he did speak, he only responded with, “All you need to know is that I found out something about Molly that I was very displeased with. I left her. The engagement’s off, and I’m fine about it.”

            “You’re fine?” Darcy asked skeptically.

            “Yeppers. I’m just peachy.”

            “Really?”

            “Mm-hmm.”

            “Honestly?”

            Ansel looked up at Darcy and slowly shook his head. “I feel like I just wasted two years of my life, and I’m not taking this breakup any better than she probably is.”

            Darcy sighed and took a seat beside Ansel, sitting to the younger man’s left. He then looked at him and put his hand on his shoulder. “I’m here, Poppet, if you want to talk about it.”

            “Well…” Ansel grinned and shook his head, as if having a hard time believing his own thoughts. “When I first met Jay, he was dating a girl. I never met her, but I was with him when he bought her this… This gorgeous, silver-banded ring with three aquamarine gems.”

            “To marry her?”

            “No, no. Just as like a… I dunno, sort of as a ‘hey, I take our relationship seriously’ thing? An anniversary gift, I think he called it.”

            “Alright…” Darcy wasn’t entirely sure what Ansel was getting at.

            The young man tittered to himself and lowered his head. Quietly, he muttered, “It’s a small world after all, Darc. I guess I shoulda asked Jay more about that girl he dated before they broke up.”

            Suddenly, Darcy got it. His train of thought slammed onto the brakes, coming to a violently rough halt at the conclusion he’d drawn from Ansel’s story, and he frowned as his eyes widened. “She—…?!”

            Ansel nodded. “I found that damn ring. By accident, of course; she left it on the dresser. When I confronted her about it, she accused _me_ of digging through her shit and tried to tell me it was her mother’s. She got pretty defensive about it. Really let me have it. I mean, you understand why I left, right?”

            “Yeah…”

            “It wasn’t her having been with Jay. I mean, sure, that would change things pretty drastically, but… She kept the ring. And she admit that she had been _hiding_ it, like it still has value to her. Like she still has _feelings_ for that son of a bitch.” Glaring in fury at the turned-off television, Ansel snarled, “I left because I can’t come _second_ in the eyes of the person I marry, especially not second to _Jay_ , of _all_ fucking people.”

            “I understand…” Darcy comforted.

            “Now I just… I don’t really know what to do.”

            “It’ll be okay, Poppet. I’ll help you get back on your feet.”

            Ansel smiled at the doctor. “Are you really on my side, or are you just saying that?” He teased.

            “I didn’t say I was on anyone’s side.” Darcy replied. “But yeah, I’m with you on this. I would’ve left, too.”

            Those words seemed to soothe Ansel somewhat. “Thanks, Darc. I knew I could count on you…”

            After giving Ansel an assuring grin, Darcy glanced at his phone to check the time. It was almost ten. On Mondays through Wednesdays, he was on call, though he (by some sort of fluke, he gathered) didn’t usually have very many patients on Mondays; his co-worker, Dr. Avery Park, tended to take most of the patients that came through the door on that particular day of the week. As such, sleeping now wasn’t necessarily required, but since he’d worked himself onto a sleep schedule in which he usually went to sleep around 10:30 PM, he had to admit that he was becoming a little bit sleepy.

            “What did I call you?”

            Darcy looked up at Ansel. “What was that?”

            “What did I used to call you? You keep calling me ‘Poppet’, and I know I used to call you something that started with a ‘P’, but I can’t remember what, exactly.”

            The doctor smirked. “‘Peanut’. You used to call me ‘Peanut’.”

            “Ah, yeah, that was it. It’s just been so long, and my memory’s kinda been goin’ to shit.”

            “Nah, it’s fine.” Darcy told him. “It’s been two years since you called me that. I’m surprised I still remembered to call you ‘Poppet’.” He snickered.

            “Touché.” Ansel managed to chuckle back.

            Sensing that they were about to lapse into another awkward silence, Darcy stood up and stretched, and as he did, he asked, “Do you want something to drink? Maybe a bite to eat?”

            “Mm, I’ll pass. I’d take a root beer or something, but I doubt you’d buy it, since you don’t drink soda.”

            “Well, actually,” Darcy casually countered, “Chloe likes soda, and we just bought a twelve-pack of root beer yesterday.”

            “Oh, how convenient.” Ansel chimed.

            “I’ll get you one, then?” The doctor asked, pointing in the general direction of the kitchen for no real reason.

            “Sure, thanks.”

            So, Darcy headed into the kitchen. After running his hand down his face in an attempt to “wipe away” the grogginess he was starting to feel, he opened the fridge and reached down to the level beneath the lowest shelf, above the crisper. Here he kept Chloe’s cans of soda, and he picked one up. With the can in hand, the doctor then returned to the living room. Ansel had leaned back against the couch, and now had his right arm up, burying his eyes in the crook of his elbow. Instead of speaking, he opted to simply sit back down beside him, and thankfully, Ansel reacted to this by putting his arm back down.

            “Thanks,” he repeated when he noticed the can. Casually, he sat up to pop the fizzy beverage open above his knees rather than risk it spilling and covering his abdomen, but it didn’t explode in his hands, and Darcy watched the corner of the younger man’s mouth twitch somewhat in a vacant entertainment before he brought the can up to his lips and took a large swig.

            Darcy took his chance to lean back and clasped his hands on his stomach. “Tired?” He asked.

            “Exhausted.” Ansel responded.

            “I guess we should both get some sleep, then.”

            Ansel scoffed. “We sharing a bed again?”

            Darcy had to process those words for a second before he remembered how he and Ansel had slept beside each other once three Decembers prior, but only because Darcy had refused to let Ansel sleep on anything other than a bed, and he had been unable to sleep at all on the chair that was (still) in the bedroom. The idea to share the bed had been Ansel’s, and Darcy wasn’t sure if he was keen on doing it again; it hadn’t necessarily been an _unpleasant_ sleep by any means, but it had been very awkward regardless. “I don’t know about that, Ansel.”

            The younger man shrugged. “Can’t say I didn’t try,” he laughed. “You can take the bed.”

            “No way. You’re my guest—”

            “—And guests don’t normally take the host’s bed.” Ansel pointed out. “Besides, I showed up out of the blue on fuckin’ Valentine’s Day. I’ll sleep on this couch if you don’t mind.”

            With nothing else to say, Darcy gave in. “Alright, then. Whatever you prefer, Poppet.”

 

* * *

 

            _Ding-dong!_

Darcy was slowly pulled from his sleep by a sound that his mind couldn’t entirely register. Bleary-eyed and still mostly asleep, he sat up, and then groggily found his cellphone on the nightstand to his left, picking it up to see the time. It was 7:30 in the morning. He was about to lay back down to rest for at least a few more minutes, when he heard someone enter the room.

            “Darcy,” Ansel’s voice nervously began, “you’d better get downstairs.”

            “What?” He drowsily asked. Slowly, he looked at Ansel, who had taken off his coat and the sweater he’d had on underneath it, now only wearing a purple baseball shirt. When he noticed the anxious look on his friend’s face, however, he felt his drowsiness get washed out by a slight feeling of worry in his chest.

            “Someone’s got to get the door, and I don’t think it should be the one who doesn’t actually live here.” As he said that, Darcy heard the sound that had initially woken him again; it was the doorbell.

            “Alright, I’m up.” Darcy practically threw himself out of bed, and he began to walk down the upstairs hallway with Ansel following at his heel like a puppy. As he walked, however, he started to think. He wasn’t really expecting anyone… He figured that it had to be Chloe, but then he realized that she probably would have texted him before dropping by.

            The doctor headed down the stairs alone, with Ansel staying at the top of the stairs, behind the guardrail. When he reached the door, he opened it casually whilst rubbing his eyes, but froze the moment he realized he was staring at a stranger.

            Standing on the landing outside was a man who was a bit shorter than him; probably by about three or so inches. He had on a thigh-length, dark brown overcoat. His hair, a pale grey-ish brown color, was trimmed short, and he had stubble that was a bit heavier than just a five-o’-clock shadow. Behind him was a uniformed police officer, and on the street, Darcy could see a parked cop car. He turned his own light brown eyes nervously one the blue eyes of the man standing directly in front of him. When he failed to say anything, however, the stranger pushed his coat open a tad, revealing a badge pinned to his belt.

            “Good morning. Are you Darcy Adair?” The man asked.

            “Uh,” Darcy stammered, “yeah. That’s me.”

            “Lieutenant Bryn Whittemore, MPD. Nice to meet you.”

            “Yeah…”

            Lieutenant Whittemore let his coat fall back into place. As he did, Darcy watched him glance upwards, and realized that he was probably only just now acknowledging Ansel’s presence. However, regardless of what purpose looking at Ansel served, he did not comment on the younger man whatsoever. Instead, he asked Darcy, “May I come in?”

            “Err… I guess so.” Reluctantly, Darcy stepped aside, allowing Whittemore and his unnamed officer to enter before inquiring, “To what exactly do I owe this visit?”

            “You know Chloe Blum, correct?” The lieutenant questioned as he took a brief once-over of the entrance and the rooms that he could see from there.

            “Yeah, I’m her boyfriend.” For some reason, Darcy felt nervous. Perhaps, he figured, it was because a police lieutenant had randomly entered his home and was now asking about his girlfriend. He still wasn’t entirely sure just what the hell was going on.

            Whittemore exhaled deeply though his nostrils. “There’s no easy way to tell you this, but…”

            Bad news. It was the beginning of bad news. Before the lieutenant even finished the sentence, Darcy was already petrified in silent, apprehensive horror.

            “Your girlfriend was murdered sometime last night. I know this is painful news, and that this might not be the best time, but I need to ask you some questions as soon as possible... Preferably now.”

            As the normal, happy life that he had struggled so hard to achieve came crumbling down around him, Darcy couldn’t dismiss the crushing sensation of déjà vu that was suddenly plaguing him.


End file.
